I Don't Remember
by whispers of the night
Summary: Three words. 10 strokes, two circles and three-quarters of a circle. Just as fragile. Just as worthless." When Ash loses his memory, Gary finds himself picking up the pieces of a life he has never really been part of. A collection of connected drabbles.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: If I was the owner of Pokemon, Gary and Ash would be lying half-dead on stretchers. It's a pity I don't own it...**

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It's such a cold day.

The wind howls past, brushing a hint of rain through the grey streets. A man, dressed in a white dress shirt that hangs untidily over stained slacks stumbles along. He is muttering to himself, most of the words hardly coherent even to him. "Witch...bastard...never...forgive..."

"Ashy-boy!"

The overly bright, overly sober voice jerks him out of his stupor. He clutches at his head and lets out a long, low groan. "God..."

"Ash!" the man says again, irritably now. He has caught up to him, his smart leather shoes hardly making a sound. He can feel his autumn-coloured eyes looking him up and down critically. "You look like Satan had you over for a drink."

"Gary." he moans reluctantly. He doesn't have the brainpower to wish he would go away.

The man smirks. "Satan must serve good beer."

"Go...away..."

"Not in the mood for a good comeback, I see."

"Go...away!"

"The Pokemon Master, drunk. The kids are going to go mad. Gossip, too."

He wonders why every word seems to taste of vinegar.

Abruptly, Gary grips his arm. "Ashy-boy," he says softly, almost guiltily. "Let's get you back to Misty."

Just that one word, just a simple name that had always reminded him of fresh flowers and morning dew. "Misty," he whispers, a breath that falls from his lips with the ease, the unconsciousness of familiarity. He pulls away with a sharp jerk of his wrist.

Gary stares at him. "What?"

He continues down the street, his steps fast and sure. He can hear the other man's footsteps behind him, and the surprise of his tone is as cutting as the shine of a diamond ring. "Ash, are you alright?"

He has made up his mind.

He pushes through the people crowded around the pedestrian light. It blinks red above them, a simple stick man standing still. Five sticks and a circle. Anyone can draw it. Anyone can erase it.

Three words. 10 strokes, two circles and three-quarters of a circle. Just as fragile. Just as worthless.

He steps off the kerb.

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**What do you think? Please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**If I owned Pokemon, I would organize a bloodbath for the fun of it! (laughs like a manic fool) **

**All readers of this drabble, you see before you, two miracles. 1: I actually updated! 2: I actually updated quickly! (laughs like a manic fool who had had caffeine)**

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Gary is shaking.

It's an uncontrollable sort of shaking, and it makes his hand jerk and drop the cup of coffee that a nurse was kind enough to give him. It spills all over her pristine uniform, and she wrinkles her nose in dismay. "I...I'm...sorry."

His voice is shaking too.

He shifts nervously, steepling and unsteepling his fingers, a habit he developed from childhood, his eyes fixed on the blinking red light above the operations room. People pass him by, some with barely a cursory glance, others without acknowledgement at all. They all have their own problems to worry about.

An hour goes by before he realises that he has forgotten something.

He gets up suddenly, and a doctor, his white coat as wrinkled as his face looks at him curiously, just long enough to pass the threshold of a glance into a look, before he returns his gaze to his clipboard.. Gary stumbles along the long, white corridor to the parphone that juts out of the wall like an eyesore. He slids a hand into his pocket and draws out his wallet. He squeezes two fingers into one of the pocket and draws out a few copper coins.

Unconsciously, he dials a number that he has known his childhood. _"Hello there! This is the Ketchum residence, but I'm out in the garden with Mr. Mime at the moment, so please leave a message after the beep."_

"Shit," he swears and bangs the receiver back on its hook. He should have known better. No one has answered that phone for a year.

"Mummy," someone says behind him. "That man said a bad word!"

Gary leans against the payphone. He closes his eyes. "Focus," he hisses at himself. "There's someone I have to call. Who? What's her phone number?"  
He stares at the coins in his hand, racking his brain. Something catches his attention.

He picks up one of the coins, squinting at the faded image embossed on it. A water Pokemon. A water...

He turns around and slips the coin into the slot. The number isn't one he has dialed in a long time, ever, really, but he knows it. He memorised it months ago.

"Hello?"

He freezes up.

"Hello?" she repeats, getting irritated. "If this is a prank-"

"Misty," he interrupts. "It's Gary."

"Oh." Her miraculous lack of words to say would have been funny, if he had been calling for any other reason.

He works more moisture into his mouth. "Ash had an accident."

"What! Where is he? What hospital is it? What happened? Is he alright?"

"He's in Chancey Hospital."he said, neatly avoiding the last two questions.

Misty hangs up.

Slowly this time, he hangs the receiver back on its hook.

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**Please review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**If I owned Pokemon, Dawn would drop into a bucket and never get up again.**

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I wish they would leave me alone.

I think they mean well, because their eyes are softer than they want to let on, narrowed with more concern than they want to show. They move around me like visitors move around a priceless, fragile statue at a museum, their voice octaves too high in their forced cheerfulness.

There is a man a few years older than me, I believe. He has dark hair and dark skin, and a gentle, tired smile. His name is Brock, and he is a gym leader, stationed in Pewter City. There is a girl too. Her name is Misty, and apparently, she is my ex-wife.

I wonder why I wanted to divorce her in the first place. Her long hair is the colour of an orange's skin and her skin is the almost translucent colour of the fruit inside. She smells of oranges too. Sensually sweet, with a tinge of sourness. Maybe that was why I left her. Maybe it was the sourness.

Then there is the boy. He's my age, that's what he tells me. We're both twenty years old, he a month and a half older. He says that his name is Gary Oak, and that we hate each other. His face was completely serious when he said that, but I burst out laughing anyway.

People don't tell other people that they hate them, not like that.

He insisted that it was true, and then as though he wanted to prove it, he retreated to the other side of the room, a scowl stretching his lips. He didn't leave.

The doctor made me do a series of tests, asking me dumb questions like the sum of one plus one. He asked me to tell him my name.

I opened my mouth automatically. Then, I stopped. "I..." I faltered. "I don't remember."

The Pikachu who had dropped itself into my lap as soon as Misty put it down, squeaked in dismay. Everyone else was silent.

"Ash," the girl whispered hoarsely. "Ash Ketchum."

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**Reviews are a great way to make me crawl out from under my rock. (hint, hint)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: If I owned Pokemon, I would first have to be able to draw a rabbit that looks like a rabbit, not a mouse.**

**Thank you to all the nice, kind, wonderful (sorry, I can't find my thesaurus or I would write hundreds of words of pure praise) people who reviewed me. Now, back under my rock. I'm sure I saw that stupid thesaurus somewhere. Maybe it was between the Pringles and the Coke...**

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Ash hasn't changed at all.

But somehow, he's still different.

Gary leaves Misty and Brock to fill out the paperwork. He joins the scraggly bunch of people who are waitng for the elevator to open its doors, and raises his head to look at the old-fashioned indicator. Two more floors to go.

It's actually something he's been pondering for quite a while, that revelation. He thinks about it as he writes out half-baked ideas that are only fit for throwing at the idiot next door, the one who always drinks the milk he leaves for Umbreon at his front door. He thinks about it when he goes through an old, blood-stained album of his grandfather posing with him, when he received his first set of Pokeballs. He always manages to get a paper cut when he flips through the pages, still crisp and sharp after so long. He thinks about it when he's not thinking about anything at all.

The elevator doors open, and he lets the other people push and shove him as they hurry to get in first. A young child squeezes between him and the shiny buttons on the control pad. She presses the number 13. Then she squeals in delight and squeezes past him again, back to her mother.

It's something about the way he smiles. That, he is sure of. Something about the way he smiles.

The elevator doors open and close, open and close. People leave, others enter, some are forced to wait because there isn't any space. The little girl behind him chatters incessantly. She can't wait to be a trainer, she tells her mother. Coordinators are too flashy, Pokemon Watchers are boring, Rangers are old people, and Researchers aren't even worth talking about. Being a Trainer is the only thing she will be.

He would like to turn around and ask her how she would catch Pokemon if a Researcher hadn't invented the Pokeball.

Finally, the doors open onto the twelfth floor. He steps out and turns right, down the banana-yellow corridor. At least it was better than white.

1213. He knocks once and twists the knob. Ash is sitting on the bed, wrapped up in an old jacket, talking to Pikachu.

"You ready?" he asks.

Ash turns to look at him and grins. "Yup."

Something about the way he smiles. It clicks.

Pikachu jumps off the man's lap and onto the table, nudging a small bag with its nose. Ash gets up, says something to him, that smile still on his face.

Gary nods, whatever the question was.

He smiles without memories.

That's it. Like he was meeting a stranger, not a person he has known for years.

"Gary? Did you hear what I said?"

He shakes himself, and snaps, "I nodded, didn't I?"

Ash guffaws. "Sure. So you really don't mind buying me Trainer's Weekly for the next ten years."

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**Press the button, press the button, press the button...you know which one!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: If I owned Pokemon, the graveyard in Pallet Town would be full. **

**I'm sorry, but this drabble doesn't seem to be as good as the others. I put it on anyway, because I can't really identify what's wrong with it! I hope you enjoy it anyway, and please give me some feedback!**

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This would be a nice place to call "home".

He stares up at the house, with its wooden walls, and sunny-coloured window frames. The overgrown garden had been beautiful once, he can tell. There are small little roses peeking out weakly between knee-high weeds, and the paving stones that form a little pathway to the front door are still painted, in all the colours of a kid's drawing. He can imagine living here. He really can.

"Ash?"

He turns to smile at Misty. "It's really great!"

The tense muscles that had bunched up around her dazzling eyes relax, and she smiles too. Has he done that before? Has he always been the one to smooth away her concerns? He wonders why he ever gave it up.

She's beautiful when she smiles, after all.

"Let's go in," Gary snaps, pushing past him and up the pathway.

Brock laughs. He has a deep laugh, right from the bottom of his throat. "Well, it's a long way from Pewter Town. I'll fix us some lunch."

The inside of the house is pretty enough, and completely feminine. Pikachu jumps off his shoulder and onto the table, setting off an enormous dust cloud. Ash picks him up quickly.

Brock rummages about the kitchen, and it is only as he bangs cupboards open and bangs others shut, that he notices traces of a man. Empty beer cans have been stacked in the corner like a pyramid,by someone who seems to have had time on his hands. The washing machine is stuffed with clothes, still unwashed, as though the man in question has never gotten around to doing them.

He steps into the living room, which is covered in an even thicker layer of dust. A granfather clock in the shape of a tall Clefable stands silently next to the staircase. It isn't working.

"Your room is upstairs, the second door from the stairs," says Gary. He doesn't have to look behind him to confirm the speaker anymore. He's starting to recognise their voices, especially Gary's, because it's such a strange mixture of bitterness, and friendship.

"Gary?"

The other man has already started up the staircase. "What?" he asks, as he pushes open the door that is the second one from the stairs.

Ash follows him up. "Why do we hate each other?"

Gary is quiet for a moment. "It's a long story."

"I've got plenty of time,' he says, walking into the room that is supposed to be his. It's rather small, with a tiny television set in one corner. The bedspread must have been white once upon a time, and the words embroidered on the bottom suggests that it is handmade.

_I LOVE MY LITTLE ASH_.

He kneels down next to it, touches the frayed ends of the words. He wonders what his mother sounds like. He wonders if she looks exactly like she does in the photo albums Misty brought him. He wonders if she smiled a lot.

"I don't want to tell it to you,' Gary bursts out behind him. It startles him, because he had almost forgotten that he had asked him something in the first place. He looks up at the other man, but he has already turned away.

Ash watches him as he picks up a clock. It is shaped like a Voltorb, but when Gary opens it, the Pidgey inside is lying on its side. Its neck is broken, and a spring extends out of the hole. Pikachu squeaks in dismay, and Ash has the faintest idea that it is talking to him.

"I gave this to you," Gary says, and throws it at him. It rolls onto the floor. "Now, it's broken."

"Guys, lunch time!"

Ash can't find the words to stop him, when he walks out the door.

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**Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**If I owned Pokemon, I would invent a cute polar bear Pokemon named Oru.**

**Tell me if you think the story's going too slowly. I'll pick up the pace.**

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"Ash is...getting better," a voice remarks behind him. It is soft, hesitant, restrained by a light tremor that tastes like sour peaches.

He stares out at the failing sunlight, his knuckes turning white against the porch railing. He can hear laughter fading away as a mother calls her children home. He can hear laughter from within the house, as Ash and Brock wash the dishes. But right here, caught in the middle of two worlds, there is only silence.

"You can stop being civil to me. I won't tell him."

She stiffens behind him, he can tell, because he hears the sharp intake of breath, anticipates the narrowing of her magnificent blue eyes. It reminds him of unwanted moments. "I had hoped you wouldn't. Ash deserves..." she pauses. "A fresh start."

He can't help but laugh at her. "How convenient. I doubt Leal would agree."

She is silent. There really isn't anything that she can say.

"Guys, come in!" Ash calls to them. "Brock's made banana split topped with melted choclate fudge!"

Gary turns to look at her, and there is a look on her face. Unmistakeable. Pleasure, delight, and a wistful nostalgia that makes him sadder than it should. For Ash, for Misty, for himself, he isn't sure. But it makes him sad all the same.

Wishing for the past always has.

"Have you noticed the difference about him?"Misty asked. She's fiddling with her hair, the ends of the sun-kissed strands brushing her neck. "It's the way he smiles."

He watches her absently. The echo of a want, to touch her hair the way she is touching it, occurs to him like an idle thought. Once thought, it goes, unmissed.

"Well?" she repeats, a tad impatiently.

He starts to agree with her, because that is what he had observed as well. But, a thread of unconsciousness tugs the unformed words back. "No," he says instead. "That isn't the difference. Not really, anyway."

"Guys!" Ash's voice bounds towards them from the kitchen. "If you don't come now, I'm gonna finish it all."

"Shut up and save some for us," Misty calls back. Gary wonders if she has realised that her tone is different now. The casual camaraderie that she had lost with Ash, has returned.

"I guess you don't know him as well as you claimed, then," she says to him. There is a hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth.

His smirk is a lot more visible, and she scowls at him. "And you," he mocks."Don't know him at all."

He leaves her, puzzled and enraged on the darkening porch, and heads inside.

Ash looks up, says something to him that he doesn't remember, in a cheerful voice that he does. It is exactly like the voice of a boy he had known four years ago.

Except that it hasn't changed at all.

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**Please review! I love knowing what you liked about it, and what you thought I could improve!**


	7. Chapter 7

**If I owned Pokemon, I would be in it.**

**This is my longest chapter yet, and now, at 00:19, I have finally finished it!**

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"No."

The simple, single word is spat out like a knife, like the bitter taste of a tempest that is about to begin. It nearly knocks him from his chair, does knock the mug from his hands, and it smashes on the tiled floor, flying shards the colour of the sun.

Gary curses loudly and snaps his cell shut. "Are you alright?" he asks him.

Ash nods vigorously. "Yes. Um..yeah." He scrambles to get the dustpan.

The other man snatches it from his grasp. "I'll deal with it." He grabs the broom from its lazy position, leaning against the wall, and swipes its stiff, coarse twigs over the floor, sweeping the broken shards into the dustpan.

Ash watches him, a tad anxiously. His face is set like plasticine. All he has to do is put pressure on any one part of it, and the facade will crumble.

"Who...were you talking to?" he asks, finally, after a long internal struggle that sends his face twisting into strange expressions.

Gary glances up at him. There is a guarded look in his eyes, guarded and exhausted. "You don't know him."

Ash shrugs. "I don't know anyone at the moment. Even the nice lady next door, who has, apparently changed my diapers."

"It isn't anyone important."

"He, or she, seems important to you."

If glares could be held responsible for painful, torturous, scorching murder, Gary would have been sentenced to life. "He is nothing of the sort."

"Who is he?" Ash presses, throwing caution to the wind, along with common sense and self-preservation.

Gary squeezes his eyes shut, mouths something that doesn't seem polite, and opens them again. "Get a move on," he snaps, heading towards the door.

"Where are we going?"

"Bring the sleeping geezer you call a Pikachu. It can stretch its legs a little."

Ash picks the Pokemon off the counter. "So where are we going?" he repeats.

Gary rolls his eyes. "Just move it."

It is already dark outside, and the silence whispers all about them, present in the pressure of the cold air against his neck, in the mute whisper of night. He shivers despite himself, and cuddles Pikachu closer to him. It murmurs sleepily and shifts in his arms, its tail batting at his face.

He looks up ahead, and he frowns. "Isn't that your grandfather's lab?"

Gary snorts. "So the Pokemon Breeder's history lessons are actually of some use."

"Why are we going there?"

"To shut you up."

He brightened. "You're going to show me something, a picture of him?"

"No."

"Then what?"

Gary doesn't seem to have heard him. He jams his hands into his pockets, takes them out again, and jams them back in. It's like he's playing that sort of the game, the one that goes: He loves me. he loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not.

"Hello?" Ash prods.

"Oh..yes. Don't you want to meet all your old Pokemon?"

"My old Pokemon? I have old Pokemon?"

Gary stares at him with cynical curiosity, exactly as one would stare at a person one deems is mad. "You are a Pokemon Master." He jams his hands into his pockets again, but this time, he draws out a bunch of keys.

He selects the right one without so much as a glance, and inserts it into the padlock. He pushes the gate open, and it makes just the slightest creak, the pained sigh of an old ghost.

They go up the pathway, and with another turn of another key, they enter the home of a legend.

The inside of the house is simple, almost Spartan. Ash squints at Gary's silhouette somewhere in front of him. "Can't you turn on the lights?" he asks, wanting to see just how the greatest Researcher who ever lived had gotten through daily life.

"No reason to."

They traverse through a maze of rooms and corridors, far too quickly for him to soak in, finally emerging in the largest and most spacious room yet. It is also the most eerie.

The walls are lined with humming shadows, and each shadow is populated with trembling balls of light that blink at him solemnly. There is an air-conditioned feel to the room, set to such a degree that his teeth rattle rather loudly, and Pikachu wakes up.

Gary switches on the light.

Ash breathes a sigh of relief.

The shadows are merely machines. And the balls of light are only lightbulbs, glowing a common shade of red.

"Pikapikachu." It doesn't seem the least bit impressed.

Gary retrieves a white coat from a hook and shrugs it on. He heads to one of the machines, presses a blinking bulb, and quite suddenly, a tinny voice bursts forth. _Trainer: Ash Ketchum. Total Pokemon in storage: Three thousand and fifty-two._

"What?" Ash yelped.

He smirks at him, and gestures, much like a circus master inviting the show to begin.

"Take a good look, Ash. It's everything you ever were."

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	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: If I owned Pokemon, Gary and Drew would be in the movies as well.**

**Sorry for the long wait! I hope you enjoy this chapter. **

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Pink sunlight spills into the room, much like a woman's hair spills over a man's back, and dances upon his eyelids, begging him to wake. He ignores this soft plea, choosing to roll over on his side, away from its beseeching touch, groaning rejection.

A shadow falls over him then, tall, thin and not in the least inclined to beg. The shadow reaches over him and picks up a round alarm clock, shaped like a Nidoqueen, the price tag covering its its left paw. There is a bare sound of a tightening screw, and then, an inhumane screech wrecks through his dreams.

Ash yelps and bolts upright, his sleepy mind colliding into his tortured ears. "Gary!"

Gary smirks at him, and slams the clock back onto the mantelpiece. "Up and about, Ash. It's ten in the morning."

He groans and falls back onto the mess of sheets and blankets. "So? I have nothing to do."

"Pikachu, give him a Thunderbolt."

Ash laughs. "Pikachu won't listen to you, it's-"

Gary covers his ears, watching him convulse on the bed, alight with sizzling electricity, in pure scientific interest. It is the ear-splitting screaming, reduced to a dull keening when filtered through his hands, that lends the laughter to his smile.

"Traitor!" Ash shouts, shaking the gleeful Pokemon.

"Come on, Ash. You have dirty dishes, spilt cereal, an Onix of laundry and a visitor calling in an hour."

Ash glances at him, the sleep gone from his blackened face. "A visitor?" he repeats.

Windchimes tinkle through the house, a quiet orchestra that chimes upstairs along a string of bells, into Ash's bedroom.

"Clever mechanism," Gary remarks. "Looks like he's early. I'll get the door."

"The door?"

Gary glances back at him, his eyes slitted in what suggests cynicism, and it makes Ash bristle in a way that seems oddly familiar. It is familiar in that it laughs at him from the corner of his mind, like a word that is on the tip of your tongue, and yet, no amount of pleading can persuade it to budge.

"Yes, Ash," he realises Gary is saying. "The door. Your house has a door."

"Pikapi."

"Get dressed?" he frowns at Pikachu. "Why would I want to get dressed?"

"Pikapikapi." The Pokemon assumes an imitation of Gary's expression. Ash scowls, and stumbles out of bed. He grabs something, a shirt that is artistically slashed with pink, and pulls it over his head, pushing random buttons through random holes.

He plods downstairs, mouth open in the anticipation of a yawn.

"Sit down," he hears Gary say. "Ash should be down in a minute."

"I must be going soon," an anxious voice trills in reply. "I have so much work to do, and-"

A man, his face as nervous and twitchy as his voice, is sitting at the kitchen counter. He is wearing a neatly pressed suit in the most riddiculous colour, and his tie is such an explosion of shades that it makes his head swim.

"Hi," he says awkwardly.

The man twists around, his mouth open so wide that he must have been preparing to emit no less than an exclamation, and then it snaps shut instantly. "M...Master Ketchum?"

Gary rolls his eyes.

"Master Ketchum, why is t...there cranberry juice all over your shirt? And...and surely...surely those aren't Sesamon Street pants?"

"No, they aren't," Gary says politely before Ash can turn a completely new shade of red. "It's...a premonition of blood that is soon-to-shed and the sweet childishness of murder committed in the victim's home."

Ash cringes.

The man nods, rather ambiguosly.

"Master Ketchum," he twittered, holding out a trembling hand. "I am Shane Quitcher, your Pokemon agent."

"Agent?" he repeats, trying to hide his confusion behind a too-bright smile. He shakes the man's hand enigmatically, and Shane's anxious expression twists into a look of pain. He takes his hand back quickly.

"Yes, agent. I am here to discuss a proposal with you."

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**Was the pace too slow? Should I pick it up a bit? Please review!**


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